


More Than What's Behind Us

by alice_fell_through



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anger Management, F/F, Gen, Genderqueer Character, Mental Health Issues, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 19:49:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5797534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alice_fell_through/pseuds/alice_fell_through
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rayne and Angie have a lot in common. They both have scars. They both have issues. They are both angry as fuck. There is no such thing as being fixed for either of them, but maybe they can help each other with some spackle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than What's Behind Us

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story I am nervous about posting. Anyone who has read the few chapters posted for my other story knows that it is mostly fluff, which is exactly what I want it to be.
> 
> This is not that story. I doubt this one will have much fluff. If it does, it will be between sadness and anger, and bad decisions and regret. I still feel like I'm treading water in this area, and this story could be my sink or swim.
> 
> I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Thank you to Kelly for being a wonderful beta. :)

She's standing outside of her anger management therapist's office, smoking a cigarette and waiting for her appointment to start, when she sees the woman down the street.

There isn't much to see. Stringy, dyed brown hair that the wind blows around her, clothes ill-fitting. Her back is to Rayne as she walks to wherever she's going, but she's still close enough to read her posture, see how her shoulders slump and pull together and make it easier to glance behind her. Not much to see, but to Rayne, it might as well be inches from her face.

It's like memory lane stabs her in the gut.

 _Fuck you_ , she thinks, clenching her teeth around the filter. It's a familiar thought, almost a good friend. It made itself at home in her head a long time ago. _Fuck you for letting life make you into this._

It isn't a fair thing to think, and she knows that underneath her anger. It's one of the things she was hoping to get help with while at these sessions, even if she isn't in them by her own fucking choice. So far, that's been about as successful as building an igloo in Hell. For an hour and a half every Friday, she sits across a desk from some spray-tanned prick who asks her asinine questions about how she's been feeling and makes minimal effort to not stare at her chest, and she practically invites Fuck You in for a goddamned weekend sleepover.

One more harsh pull burns the cigarette down to the filter and turns the smoke in her mouth even more bitter. Time for one more, maybe, before she needs to go inside. She holds her breath and one hand against the side of the building to balance herself, enjoying the way the smoke heats and burns her lungs and throat, while she rubs the cherry out on the sole of her shoe and imagines it burning through to her skin. A flick of her fingers sends the butt flying away from her.

When Rayne looks up again, the woman is gone. They all go away at some point.

A breeze tears the smoke away from her when she slowly exhales. Behind her, she hears the door to the building open. The mildly infuriating way it rattles on its hinges. Fuck it if she's late for another session where screams fill her head. She's having another cigarette. Before she can dig her pack out of her back pocket, someone bumps into her. Not hard or on purpose, barely someone's shoulder against hers as they walk by. It's New York City, Brooklyn at that, and it's nothing she isn't used to on crowded days. But it isn't crowded and it isn't day, and she isn't stupid.

"What the **fuck** do you think you're doing?"

The metallic schink of a Zippo-- _her_ Zippo--flicking open is the immediate answer. Cropped blonde hair flashes in the streetlights as the person turns around, and Rayne spots what is definitely her lighter in the stranger's hand before she sees their wide, cocky smile, a cigarette dangling from the corner of their mouth. With the leather jacket that hung heavy on his shoulders, he almost looked like a cliche. 

"Gettin' a light," he mumbles, cigarette wiggling dangerously loose.

Something sparks in the back of her head, igniting a miasma of dark, weighted thoughts, anger racing hot down her spine. Words burn on her tongue and she pulls back to spit them in his face-- and they die down as he meets her eyes and brings the lighter's flame to the tip of the cigarette, flaring red as he inhales. It's like looking into a mirror.

 _Fuck you,_ his eyes say, and more. Smile on his face and all. _Fuck you. Fuck off._ Equal parts _go the fuck away_ and _come the fuck at me._ The shadows on his face distort as he tilts his head, smoke leaking from his nose like a dragon, and Rayne sees a more gentle curve of his--maybe her, now she isn't sure--jaw.

A glint of silver in the air, and she barely has time to catch her lighter. It lands warm and solid in her hand.

"Thanks for the light, babe." There's no mistaking the lilt of the voice now--all bass and pitched low, but feminine all the same.

The realization tempers the flames in Rayne's throat, just barely. The words that emerge are still embers. "I'm not your babe."

They do nothing to wilt the woman's infuriating smile--if anything, it widens before she _fucking salutes_ , two fingers to her forehead, and turns to continue down the sidewalk. Rayne notices for the first time there's a skull, ragged around the edges and sewn into the back of her jacket with rough stitches, letters just as frayed and chaotic above it to spell out one word. **_JUDAS._**

Blood starting to thrum in her ears, she can only watch the other woman walk away.

Shoulders back, chin up and eyes forward. Hands deep in her pockets, steps fast and alert, her entire frame seeming to twitch with something that shrieks bad news. Not afraid. Something to be afraid of.

Rayne isn't afraid of her. Rayne, as always, is fucking pissed.

She turns away herself, and marches up the stairs, slams the door open hard enough that the hinges shudder. For the next hour and a half, her 'therapist' doesn't get a chance to ask a damn thing--she's too busy ranting about the jackass on the street, who must be another patient of his, to give him a chance.

**Author's Note:**

> Please, comment if you like what you read and let me know what you think. Feel free to offer constructive criticism!


End file.
